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Sunday, February 12

Fresh Horses Brigade - Funeral Song

After such a great response to last week's FHB over at Edenland I spent most of this week wondering what this week's topic would be. When I saw what it was I must admit I was just a little disappointed.

Now to be quite truthful with you I have never really stopped to think about my funeral in any shape or form. In fact I have never even really given much time to the concept of me actually dying. It is not that I don't think it will happen. Of course it will. Death is one of the few things that comes with some certainty. There is also a fair bit of uncertainty about it all as well so I would prefer just put it in the don't want to know basket.

After all it will make little to no difference to me what goes on to celebrate my life, after I have left it. Given the success (or lack there of) for some of my birthday parties, I wouldn't expect the turn out to my funeral to be anything spectacular. Unless of course between now and then I do something amazing that touches thousands....

When it comes to funerals I am a little torn. Apart from dad's funeral a few years ago I have never had to help plan one. I hope that it is a long time before I ever have to go through that again and there weren't even high levels of family conflict. We all just seemed to know and agree on the right way to say goodbye.

The songs we chose were Amazing Grace (with words and bagpipes which is not easy to find), CCR Down on the Corner and a marching band version of When the Saints Go Marching In. My mother would probably have preferred to have something other than Down on the Corner but she was grossly outvoted and she knew it. My brother, sister and I felt that dad would not have wanted us moping around so we tried to make it as cheery as possible.

However songs like the Sesame Street tune at a two week old babies funeral is far from cheery. Standing in the back rows of a full room thinking of all the things a little life will never get to lead...Four weeks before our wedding, the best man's wife went into early labour. To this day I am in awe of how they took it all in their stride. I praise the Lord and thank the Powers That Be, that I know not of that pain.

But back to what songs I would have at my funeral.

I guess it could be rather fitting to play this one

I mean it is nearly like my name and all.

Funnily enough though I had not even heard of it till I was nearly 21. Shocking I know. I can still remember the handsome young fellow (not hubs though he is a handsome fellow) who took me into his flash surround sound thearter setup. Which for the time was rather impressive and not as widespread as it is these days. It was a surreal feeling. Sitting there. My heart a flutter being in this young man's presence. Anticipating what was to come next.

I had been longing for his attention for a while you see. So having him serenade me if you will with Stevie Nicks singing a song about my name (which essentially made the song about me)....well you can just imagine the rest.

Perhaps it is not so fitting to have this played after all.

Unfortunately though that is the best I can come up with at this stage. I hope that my death is still a long way away, giving me plenty of time to contemplate the best way to encourage those that love me to celebrate the passing of my life. I do have a few details already worked out. Like the fact that I don't want any black. I would much rather bright colours and rainbows than morbid and black.

Oh and that if time permits I will have a live wake as well. When my dad turned 76 we had a massive party and invited all the people we expected to come to his funeral. We called it a live wake. It was one of the most wonderful parties I have ever been too. At the time dad had been rather unwell so there was a very real chance that a real wake wasn't too far round the corner. Dad couldn't bear the thought of us having a party without him so we had it while he could join in.